Weekly Review No 181
Weekly Review No 181 (1945) Rowing Regatta at Hamilton: With more men back from the war, the popularity of rowing is picking up again. The annual Hamilton regatta on the Waikato River attracted many entries and rowers from the West End club of Auckland won every event. Crowds on the riverbank got a lot of excitement out of the speedboat racing. 01.35 Hutt Housing - First Family Moves to Waddington: The Patterson family move out of their cramped Wellington flat into a new state house in the new Hutt City suburb of Waddington. A thousand homes have been built here in less than a year. 03.05 Vegetables, Pukekohe Supplies Pacific Front: A Pukekohe factory processes locally-grown vegetables for American soldiers fighting the Japanese. Cabbages and peas arrive and empty cans are rolled into the factory from a railway siding, raw material for the canning machines. Peas are put into the vining machines then women hand check them to ensure only perfect peas are canned. The produce is either steam-cooked or quick frozen and pressed between heat-conducting layers in the huge refrigerators. THe steam-cooked cans are cooled with water then painted green for camouflage purposes. On the cabbage line all bruised leaves are stripped off before the cabbages are packed - 150 young women work fulltime on the cabbage line. At the Patamahoe vegetable gardens the last of the season's pea crop is being picked and cabbages are being harvested after being grown on the golf course. Labour is a problem and young women have been brought in from as far afield as Auckland and Thames to live in factory camp accommodation. In a good week, the Pukekohe factory can ship 35,000 cases of fresh vegetables to the troops in the Pacific War. Duration 07.37